Could you believe who is calling the name of God from the seat of power and privilege? You’re right, the wife of the president of Africa’s giant, Nigeria. In this 21st century, you will nearly conclude that westernization at base translates into non-god talks, but certainly that might be true, for those whose veins are devoid of African red streams. John Mbiti proclaims that his black siblings are from an incorrigibly religious ontology, which manifests in their worldviews, including their social and political performances.
Like Sinead O’Connor, who said that ” if you live with the Devil, you find out there’s [God],” Mrs. Jonathan, also, on a live national television broadcast, wept, like Jesus did, at Lazarus’ home, however, with a different motivation that “there is god oh.” Her husband’s administration has been greeted with all the devils released from the chainholding in hell. And here she comes decrying all she saw as injustice to her husbands success. Certainly, what caught the attention of majority of Nigerians was a discourse tilting towards “real” or “fake,” whether her tears were original or a sheer performance–an acting up. The part which most, if not all Nigerians failed to contend with was the reality of perspective. When the chickens come to roost, we suddenly become concerned and talks of justice, or a lack thereof, forms our hymnal.
On April 14, 2014, an addition to 21st century crimes against humanity was witnessed in the quiet town of Chibok, awakening that name to the ridicule and mispronunciation of the world. 276 school girls who–it was said– were writing the WAEC examinations. It was indeed Boko Haram’s calculated pathway to immediate stardom. Protests soon erupted all over the country following what appeared to be non-concomitant attitude of the government. But, to be fair to this government, since when did Nigerian governments begin to care about us, the low-state peoples? When have we suddenly attained, or acquired, that status of citizens with rights and privileges? Like Nigerian pidgin English speakers would ask, “who born monkey?”
What concerns us now, however, is to know whether you agree with Mrs. Patience Jonathan that there is god, who is loving, kind and merciful, considering the evils which African societies, have mastered? Take Nigeria, where she is first ladying, as an example. The fearsome Boko Haram, that once Islamist, radical, extremist group, maturating and becoming a formidable terror brand whose toll rings across the blues, has taken full control of the human abattoirs, in Nigeria, bombing houses and tearing limbs apart like pencil shrapnel. It was under these dire circumstances of an-other that the First Lady proclaimed in spiritual outburst of memory: “there is god.” Those televised moments of a “first” lady’s tears apparently became, for many young Nigerians substantiation of an “illiterate” president’s wife, whom our we, the people voted few years back as our messiah. Seems like our amnesia has no national discolorations.
Still, the case continues to ring true and false in many circles–whether there is God, god or Gods. What’s your take? Would you consider that there is God in any of Nigeria’s religions–of Christianities, Islams, and all– where justice and truth seem to taken quick flight? It’s almost unimaginable that…there could be no God. Really?
